The man was, it was plain, after a week's tremendous and for him wholly
unusual self-restraint, now giving full rein to his great rage over his
miserable situation. As he played, she could see the muscles of his
strong neck move under the brown skin, and his shoulders rise and fall
tumultuously with his uneven breaths. The din he made was almost
unbearable, and she pressed her hands to her ears to shut it out.
The room was very large, and high, and round it, half-way up the dull
yellow walls, ran an old carved gallery, relic of the time when it had
been the studio of a hare-brained painter, a friend of Hazlitt and
Coleridge, a believer in poor young Keats while the rest of the world
laughed at him--in the very early days.
In those days feasts had been held here, and in the gallery, hidden
behind flowering dwarf peach-trees in tubs, stringed instruments were
played--very softly, for the painter of one good picture and dozens of
bad ones, had taste--while his guests sat at his board. Stories are
still told of the small table that used to be brought into the room at
the end of dinner by two little Ethiopians in white tunics. An ancient
table with faded gilding just visible on the claw feet that looked out
from under its petticoat of finest damask; and on it priceless gold and
silver bowls and salvers of all shapes, full of the most marvellous
fruits from all countries, some of which fruits were never seen
elsewhere in England.
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